Summer of scholarship

Students dive deeper into disciplines through faculty-mentored research

From conducting DNA sequencing to studying food insecurity in Adams County, Gettysburg College students are engaging in a broad range of faculty-mentored summer research projects. In diverse locations such as Maine, Bali, Iceland, India, and Nicaragua—and even right here on campus—students are expanding upon their classroom experiences through hands-on learning.

Research in the sciences

With support from endowed science research funds and a $1.3 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, there are 33 students conducting research in biology, chemistry, physics, environmental studies, mathematics, and health sciences. These students meet throughout the summer to discuss their research, attend workshops on graduate school and scientific writing, and will share their research on campus this fall.

Exploring Huntington’s disease—Alex Campbell ’15 arrived at Gettysburg as a pre-med major, but became interested in science research when he took the biology department’s first-year research-based Phage Biology course. This summer, he’s working in the lab with chemistry Prof. Shelli Frey to study Huntington’s disease, a currently incurable hereditary neurodegenerative disorder. Campbell and Frey are examining the role of cell membranes in the toxic behavior of the mutant huntingtin protein, and are testing cholesterol and other biologically relevant molecules as potential therapeutic methods.